70 years ago this week, Pluto was discovered using a telescope with photographic equipment attached to it. The concept is pretty simple. Take pictures of the same area of the sky over a period of time. Anything moving is a celestial object that is relatively close to the earth.

photo credit: Elsie esq.

How easy would it be to discover an object yourself? If you have a telescope, preferably with a motorized tripod, and the ability to hook up a digital camera to it, you might be able to do it.

Take pictures of the same spot in the sky over a period of time. Bring those photos into Photoshop or some other image editing software, look for changes in the images. You just might have found a new asteroid!!! Then it will be time to call the IAU.

Another Exoplanet was discovered by the COROT observatory. This exoplanet, COROT-Exo-7b, is about 390 light years from Earth.

Read more at Sky and Telescope.

Here’s a video clip of film from a V2 rocket of the earth. Supposedly the first time Earth was filmed from a very high altitude.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emMIM3CKGtQ

I recently joined The Planetary Society to help promote awareness for space and space travel. I also download a cool free open source planetarium called Stellarium.

Here’s a cool dash cam mounted video of a launch. Includes orbiter intercom audio.